RBI wants differentiated debit card MDR for POS machines & QR codes

To promote payments on debit cards, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has proposed new slabs for merchant discount rate (MDR) banks will be allowed to charge merchants, in a draft paper. The RBI floated a concept paper in March 2016 which was looking to increase the card transactions in the country and push card acceptance network. MDR is an inter-bank exchange fee that banks charge merchants for enabling digital transactions.

“The inputs received for this paper, along with interactions with the industry representatives, has reinforced the felt need for wider acceptance of card payments by merchants in general, with a specific focus on rapid adoption by the smaller merchants,” the RBI added in it the paper.

The proposed slabs for debit card MDRs are:
– Small merchants with turnover outside the ambit of GST (turnover less than Rs 20 lakhs per annum)
– Government transactions
– Special category of merchants
– All other merchants with turnover within the ambit of GST (turnover above Rs 20 lakh per annum)

MDR for debit cards for petrol / fuel would be decided after the industry consultation process with Oil Ministry is completed.

Card networks will have to revise the applicable interchange and network fees, preferably on a percentage basis rather than any flat fee basis. Banks will also appropriately rationalize the monthly rentals, if any, recovered from the merchants taking into account the type of card acceptance infrastructure deployed at the merchant location.

MediaNama’s take

The RBI seems to have the right idea by reducing the MDR for debit cards for smaller merchants. After cash, debit cards are the most prevalent payment instrument in the country with over 700 million cards in circulation. However, trouble will start once when it starts looking at digital POS modes such as QR codes. More definition of what constitutes “digital acceptance infrastructure” is needed.

Note that this is only for debit cards and so far only Visa and MasterCard have QR code payments. We had mentioned earlier that QR code payments through card networks are quite convoluted at the moment in India which requires the creation of multiple virtual prepaid cards. Then there are closed systems created by wallet companies and the UPI itself.

4 Comments

When I use PayTM to pay in store, I fire up the PayTM app on my smartphone to scan the store's PayTM QR code. When I use PayZapp, I similarly use the PayZapp app to scan the store's mVisa QR code. Any idea what app would I need to fire up to scan the store's India QR Code (as and when the store has one)? As things stand, I presume none of the payment apps in my smartphone can scan India QR Code.

Also, any idea what does it take for a merchant to qualify for India QR Code? Generally people say merchants need POS machine to accept card payments. POS machine is a small issue actually. The real constraint is posed by Merchant Account, which is required by a merchant to accept card payments. Due to internal risk management reasons, banks don't issue merchant accounts to micro merchants. This category of merchants is exactly the prime target market for PayTM, which does not have a similar screening process. Keen on knowing whether India QR will also necessitate a Merchant Account?

A lot of details about BharatQR is still up in the air. Technically, mVisa QR codes should be able to work on Bharat QR. But it shouldn't take banks a lot of time to print the QR codes. Will check with the banks if they will necessitate the creation of a merchant account.

Now that you've mentioned mVisa, I've made mVisa payments via HDFC Bank PayZapp. Interestingly, every merchant who supports mVisa payment has a Merchant Account and POS for accepting plastic card payments. To that extent, their support of mVisa seems to be for the the "leave your wallet at home" Target Group which wants to use the digital version of their existing payment cards. In today's BharatQR Code ad in TOI, I noticed a line which says "If you want to accept BharatQR payments, contact your branch". Please do update your findings about the need or not for Merchant Account.